Krystian Jaszcza, The Question of the Russian Military Power

The Russian Empire in the beginning of the 19th century was standing tall upon the European throne driving out Napoleon from their country after France had conquered most of Europe.  The decisive victories of Poland, Sweden and Turkey made Russian empire stand on top of the European Power bracket until the modernization of armies, weapons and tactics swept through Europe.  The abolition of serfdom, new technologies and tactics used by the rest of the West were just some of the reasons why Russian Army and Empire started to fall apart in the late 19th century.  First came the issue of new technologies diffusion of the arms and weapons all over Europe, it was very costly, time consuming but very efficient and resulted in great improvement of weapons and armies of the Western Countries.  Russian Tsar and the government believed that the same army and weapons that defeated Napoleon earlier in the century would still be efficient at this time.  The economy of the huge Russian empire was not doing that well and the fact was that the tsar and the government had to deal with so many problems they didn’t see the need to improve the technology of their armies. The country was very backwards and people liked the way things were going and didn’t really like rapid changes in the way they live and work.  After the abolition of serfdom even greater problems arouse because of the fact that these people were free now and will have to be paid like workers and not be exploited like they were in the times before.  This would lead to a greater expense by the government in every aspect of Russian live, the workers in all aspects of live will need higher wages and this will lead to a economic problems for the Russian government and nation.  

The great awakening of the Russian military came after the defeat at the Crimean War in which Russian tsar and generals finally realized how badly backwards their army is and how much improvement they will need, in the words of Dimitri Miliutin " Unimportant.  Improvements in weapons now give a decide advantage to the most advanced army.  We became convinced of this truth by the bitter experience of the last war.  Now we must honestly admit that we are materially behind other European countries in our munitions and weapons" (Bradley).